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Just a little FYI on party set up. Ayla has the 'Charm' technique, which is basically 'Steal'. As you get near the end of the game, and on to the 'end game' bosses there are very nice things that you can get from charming bosses, and certain enemies (Mainly speed tabs). For that reason alone she is always in my party.
I had her in my party already ever since she helped me against the Golem and you aren't the only person extolling the virtues of Charm to me so I'll be sure to keep her in my party. I had taken no notice of that Tech until now though so I'm glad you told me. I can start getting Megalixirs which be awesome. Well not now but at some point.
Apparently poor Marle lags behind everyone else. New Game+ sounds ridiculously broken and easy according to a guy elsewhere:
Quote:
Marle only falls out of favor after you've reached New Game+.
What happens is that once you get everyone's ultimate gear, the game kind of breaks down mechanically. Auto attacks are free, tend to hit as hard or even harder than techniques, and even if they don't, they will do more damage than a Double or even Triple technique. And Marle's best weapons are kind of weak compared to everyone else's.
Don't need a dedicated healer, because you pummel your way through everything and the defensive bonuses from gear get kind of crazy. And even if you do need healing, megaelixirs start falling into your lap once you figure out that Ayla's charm skill is a game-breaker in of itself.
Marle is one of the best characters, being a participant in some of the best combos in the game, but once you reach a certain power ceiling, she lags behind because her skills aren't really needed.
The thing is, even without new game plus, Frog or Robo with your magic tabs still end up being the better healers, as their group heals don't require two people to preform. Of course this requires knowing this stuff in advance. If you know what you're doing, she's kind of replaceable by Zeal on your first play through.
The only real benefit of Marle is duel techs, but there are plenty of dual techs that group heal you don't need her for, and Frog and Lucca both have some pretty sweet duel techs with others.
Don't get me wrong, Marle is definately useful, and you're not going to feel disadvantaged for using her at all. But yeah, she kind of lags behind everyone else in the game in terms of usefulness.
It's rather amazing how fast you can become invested in a story or character.
Magus being Janus is....so fitting it's really perfect. I recall the one NPC saying Janus got sucked into a Gate too but I never imagined this. It makes so much sense and it's very, very intriguing. Also unexpected. Being unexpected counts for a lot since even as good as the story has been, it's been very "I saw that coming" for the most part. Granted this isn't the game's fault entirely. Point is, Janus = Magus is great and I'm glad I saved before fighting him. I was right on the money he wouldn't join my party if I fought him then. I knew Magus became a playable character at some point and was kinda "eh" about using him but now I HAVE TO use him. There is no other way. This reveal has really just changed everything for me in quite a few ways.
This is why I said he wasn't really a well intentioned extremist. Magus really isn't a good person. He's kind of an asshole whose dickishness so happens to be directed at the bad guy.
Not a bad thing mind you, as a Character Magus is fantastic after you make it through Zeal.
Magus after joining the group is Piccolo after he beat Radditz. Still evil but for his own reason helping then heroes. Considering Lavos is no actual character someone evil was needed and him bein sympathetic is good.
Well it isn't all Magus' fault. Apparently he was raised by Ozzie of all people. He was also fresh off being raised by his obviously deranged and insane mother. All-in-all, the kid had a tough childhood to put it mildly and it understandably screwed him up.
I'm in the endgame now though, Crono is alive and that's great I guess. Time to do sidequests! I am following a FAQ because that's just easier. This is non-main game stuff so I don't want to risk stumbling into something I'm unprepared for. I deicded to go with the "Rainbow Shell" firs but I've kinda forgotten all about it because I just found I can Charm Megalixirs off these Fossil Apes. Gonna spend a good while grinding up a healthy stock of those in case of emergencies.
I'll try and get back to Plot later tonight. Gonna be busy most of tomorrow so maybe i can try and get some of the sidequests done tonight and get some backstory and stuff.
EDIT:
That camping scene and the subsequent time travel to Lucca and her mother was like something out of a very different game. The former was intriguing and meditative and the latter was sincerely horrifying. I grew up knowing the fear of losing my grandmother who was more like my mother and while I guess Lucca's mother didn't die, her being crippled like that while little Lucca couldn't do anything is just....just the worst kind of nightmare.
But yeah, good stuff. Just totally different from everything beforehand.
So i finished all the sidequests. Well except Omen and the DS exclusive stuff. Everyone is at a little under Level 50. Well I haven't finished the Rainbow Shell quest yet but I thought you could take stuff to Melchior and he'd make awesome equipment for you? I thought he made the best equipment in the game or whatever? I figured I'd get the ingredients in one of these quests but apparently not.
Anyway I think I might try to fight Lavos. Tomorrow of course, not now. I'm tired now. But I'll see if I can beat him - er, it. If I can, I'll just save my New Game + in another slot and load up the previous pre-final boss save to do the optional dungeons. I assume New Game+ doesn't come with the Epoch or the ability to do these dungeons straight away.
As you have done it already:Quote:
Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover
The reason for this sidequest was so you could make an alternate timeline where she was saved. You just had to press four buttons: "L-A-R-A", as that is what Lucca'as mother is called.
But yes, that was something terrible thinking about how no one helped her in Lucca's time.
Indeed, you can get Chrono's Rainbow Katana, Prism Glasses and such.Quote:
Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover
But you keep talking about alternate timelines except our heroes only ever go back to one timeline. Literally every change in the past you make you will see in the future. Are you saying our ship just magically travels to the right alternate dimension each time? Timeline 1 was Lucca's mother being paralyzed so we fixed that with Timeline 2 and we'll go to Timeline 2 every time we visit 1000 AD from now on. Timeline 1 had the Sun Stone being useless so we made Timeline 3 where it was in the right place but now we only ever go to Timeline 3 in 2300 AD. Timeline 1 had the Mayor's family being jerks but by giving Spiced Jerky to the lady in 600 AD created Timeline 4 of 1000 AD whee the family is nice. Etc., etc..
Are you saying we just randomly happen to go to the exact right timeline each time? That doesn't make any sense. It doesn't match up with anything that has been talked aboutwith regards to the party's time traveling abilities.
Like I said, I think you're overthinking things. This game was written by several different people and it shows. The temporal mechanics are shaky at best and contradictory at worst.
I keep talking about an alternate timeline because the other thing is not possible and even if the impossible was meant in 1995 it is different already. Really everything necessary about them being either many timelines or one timeline that was never changed has already been explained by me. Also - to go back to the Dragon Ball example, Trunks was also magically possible to jump from branch tp branch. And in the DS remake Magus tells you right before one battle "this is one of the possible timelines where enemy x was already defeated ...". Also there is no way for you to know tht if they travel to year 1000 that it is year 1000 of the same branch. So if anything and it is something that did not exist in their future it is another future. You cannot change things and destroy a reality by replacing it with another one and even the game itself already had its lines that showed that it at least was clear somehow and they just did not put that much effort into a complex explanation to not make it confusing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover
And I told you I am not overthinking things. You still thinking that would means you have ignored everything about characters or a sequel that I have explained you. The impossible thing is the contradictory thing and so even if it was possibily meant 19 years ago it does not matter because it has been retconned to a better and at least more logical way. So even if they had a wrong idea back then it is still what it is today. So there is no "overthinking" of this if at least something that seems reasonable in a way has been presented already. Some plotholes are acceptable in a story but such things do not even make sense in fiction for the very reason of their own acts being proof of the impossibility of the opposite's existence in the same context. Magus already tells you about it before fighting the secret boss in the DS version, so there is no doubt about it and normally a story is always at least partly written by more people. Still they must agree to most things for the final product that is presented and as we have it the way it is now with those extras, the sequel and various things we have an official version that is not just "somehow written without thinking to much about it". As a matter of fact newer Final Fantasys would be hated for being written without thinking much about. And as said, Final Fantasy XIII-2 had much of that - much that is not possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover
Yes, it does bother with it and it is not possible. There is no immunity or anything. Whatever happened, happened. You simply cannot do anything new, because of the closed circuit meaning it has happened exactly like that before. And Chrono Trigger with using the Chrono Doll absolutely shows that this is also meant. Any other immunity to something like this is as impossible as what people claim about it. You are part of a concept andd you canot destroy the reason for you to act. It is that easy. And that is not philosphical, it is normal physics and its causality and if you could just turn one stone around it would already mean a different world, it does not need to affect your party directly, it affects reality and so your party and everything. And that is not possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
As I said, the time travel mechanics are pretty simple in this game, its Chrono Cross that will be addressing the whole "alternate timeline" issue so just ignore that nonsense and enjoy because Kato couldn't and like R=U people he had to go an overcomplicate a simple story.Quote:
Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover
It's only not possible due to Chrono Cross ret-cons. Saying that it's not possible in relation to Trigger alone, is wrong. No one knows how time travel would actually work, if it is possible.Quote:
I keep talking about an alternate timeline because the other thing is not possible and even if the impossible was meant in 1995 it is different already.
Looking over some discussions I've been having with CT fans elsewhere, Woolsey's translation did change a fair bit. "Fiends" are called "Mystics" is a big one to me. "Fiend" makes them sound like r ace of demonic hellspawn. But it looks to me more like they are just as sapient or capable of good and evil as any human being. Mystic keeps them otherworldly but doesn't have the negative connotations that Fiend does.
Fiend of course is the more accurate translation. Magus was Maoh. Ever seen Kyo Kara Maoh? Yeah Magus wouldn't fit in there....
Anyway, another "Woolseyism" is apparnetly there is some line about the reason Zeal was so amazingly advanced so fast was because Lavos guided the evolution of humankind. I was reading that post elsewhere and was like "...what? I talked to every Zeal NPC and no one ever mentioned anything like this!" Then i learned it was only in the SNES version and not the one I'm playing.
So yeah, that's me posting for now because I don't feel like playing the game. Other stuff on my mind. I just wanted to get a few more of my thoughts out there in the meantime and see if anyone else noticed these alterations/additions or what you thought of them.
EDIT 1
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/g...ps6f4c504b.png
That is from the more accurate DS version I'm playing. Then again, the DS version apparently retroactively makes connections to Cross so I'm not sure if this was a new thing or not. Ironically what I've heard is that Woolsey added the whole "guiding evolution" stuff in his translation but then Cross actually established that as a thing.
Anyway, beat the game. Got "Beyond Time" as my ending which I take it is the normal one to get. I think the only other endings I might try to go for are the DS exclusive one and the one where you take on Lavos with just Crono and Marle. Or maybe it's just Crono? Whatever, I just figured it might be a bit more interesting since the final fight wasn't really that tough. Was about Mid-level 50s.
Magus + Dark Matter = 2K damage every turn. With Golden Stud he can cast that thing all day. Had Crono spam Frenzy and Ayla spam Triple Kick. With all the Megalixirs I got from just going through just the first Black Omen, there was never much danger. The most annoying thing was I forgot to equip Ayla with a Golden Stud of her own so I kept having to waste time feeding her Hi-Ethers or Elixirs when I didn't have to.
I'm gonna take some time to collect my thoughts on the game as a whole and I'll post them later.
EDIT 2
Went and got the DS exclusive ending, "Dream's Epilogue." I like to call it the Magus Ending though because that's what it is. In the normal one Marle was like "you going to keep looking for Schala?" He doesn't even go "..." before going through the Gate. Hardly a great send-off. This ending though had two Maguses finding Schala together but being unable to save her... Perhaps even more tragic was how she told him that his relentless pursuit of power could not save her and so he just gave up on everything. He couldn't comprehend what she meant..that it wasn't how strong your magic is that saves a person but things more insubstantial and meaningful.
EDIT 3
So...Chrono Trigger. Some people I have talked to over the years say it could easily be in the running not only for best SNES JRPG but best JRPG ever. Now do I think either of those things? Well on the former I'm not sure. This is only the second SNES JRPG I've finished (ironically I played neither of them on the SNES). For best JRPG ever though, probably not. It was still very, very good however.
I think part of my lack of being wowed was due to knowing the "core plot" before I even went into the game. I've known all about Lavos the alien manipulator thing since long before I played the game. In addition to that the story was pretty straightforward so there was very little in the way of things that made me sit up and take notice. The one giant exception of course is Magus being Janus. That was a reveal I did not see coming at all and it cast a whole new, far more intriguing light on Magus' character. I noticed that Magus seemed to be at the center of all the best stuff in this game. When I first got really into the game, it was during "Frog's Arc" when we fixed the Masamune and proceeded to storm Fiendlord Keep. I think that was easily the best dungeon and highest point of the game's storytelling. Everything from the flashbacks of Glenn all the way up to the climactic battle with Magus was so exquisitely done.
So yes, Magus was my favorite character. After him? Ehhh....it's kinda hard to say. I never much cared for Lucca. I know a lot of people like her but she was never that interesting to me. Robo had a nice little sidequst but otherwise he didn't do a whole lot in the game. And Ayla...well you couldn't do much with her character anyway. She's got rather limited mental faculties. That leaves Frog, Marle and Crono. Frog was great for his arc like I mentioned before but he seemed to have limited purpose in the story afterward. I'm sure I might like Lucca and Frog more if I used them in my party - maybe they get extra scenes or a lot more dialogue, kinda like in FFVIII where I discovered Quistis had an actual character. you just had to have her in your party so you would get several more scenes with her and Squall that I never knew existed. Oh, CT is a much better game than FFVIII, I'm just trying to explain myself. That leaves Marle and Crono. Crono has no personality but I did like Marle, even if she was the blatantly obvious love interest from the get-go. I think everyone can sympathize with a difficulty in communication causing strain between you and your parent as you're growing up. That being aid, I have no idea why Marle's mother left that note with the Rainbow Shell....
In terms of locations and the like, Fiendlord Keep was the best as I already said. I also liked the Ocean Palace. I think it wa sa very good touch to keep the dungeon music playing instead of putting in the battle theme. It keeps things "in the moment" as it were.
The battle system thankfully was not anywhere near as complicated as I had feared. With enemies moving around I was worried I'd constantly need to be timing my hits and the like. This played a part now and then but a good deal of bosses are huge, stationary things so it was rather irrelevant.
And now onto music! From the onset I was very impressed with the soundtrack.
Gato's Theme - From the first time I heard this, I knew I was in for an awesome game.
Wind Scene AKA 600AD World Map Theme - It was easily the best world map theme for a long, long stretch of the game.
Corridors of Time - This one doesn't need to be explained or discussed. I think every Chrono fn I've come across knows how great it is.
Tyranno Lair - I have a weakness for evil organ themes okay? Even so this theme probably wouldn't be one of my favorites if it wasn't for how it gets more....intense later on. I didn't much care for the actual dungeon itself but the music made it very memorable.
Frog's Theme - Another "dur" track it seems and with good reason. This song was a huge reason his arc and reclaiming the Masamune was so memorable.
Battle With Magus - Heh, this segment of the game just had all the great music didn't it? Nothing but the best theme for the best character.
I must confess though, I was not wowed by the final boss music... I liked whatever theme was playing when you fight the first form of Lavos, the one that keeps cycling through previous boss fights. There is a segment of that fight where the music gets very light and soft and sort of dreamy... I really enjoyed that.
In conclusion, i give Chrono Trigger an A-. Good if simple and light-hearted story with some nice characters here and there and a very fun battle system and excellent music.
Which is why the camping scene still puzzles me... It's totally out of left field in terms of tone with the rest of the game's story. The whole meditations on the nameless entity that is possibly making all the Gates appear and whatnot just felt like something out of a different game. Before this, our heroes were just like "time travel smurf yeah!" and the temporal mechanics of this were shaky and contradictory. Then this scene popped up and well...I dunno what to make of it. Maybe Chrono Trigger is like that FF Tactics? They did speculate it was all the dream of a dying creature. It's all the fantasy world dreamed up by some poor cripple or whatever.
Also I forgot to mention this:
The stuff with Marle and the "Grandfather Paradox" is completely ignored after it happens. It was like the beginning of the game was giving you a warning. "Tinkering with the past will have dangerous repercussions!" Then the entire party was like "let's not just tinker with the past and future, let's completely rewrite everything we don't like!" It really shows that Chrono Trigger was written by several different people and then just kinda jammed together.
And while her brother was the best, Schala did nothing for me. We just barely spent any time with her yet she's like "my hopes are all on you, Crono and other people I've had no real interaction with!" I guess they did save the one dude from the Mountain of Woe so that showed we are awesome and all but...I dunno, just never felt any connection to her character at all.
But whether or not I cared for her, I didn't like that the subplot there was pretty much dropped. Luckily I got the DS exclusive ending which has a bit more closure.
So I feel like I'm talking to myself here...
I'm gonna have to wait till Wednesday when i get paid. Then I can get Chrono Cross off PSN and start it.
What I know of CC's story:
1. Apparently the cast of CT all die?
2. The Time Devourer and Schala are involved, as hinted by the DS ending I got.
3. Porre conquers Guardia.
i have absolutely no idea how any of this ties together. It's rather like getting Page 1, 100 and 500 from a book - it just confuses things more than if you hadn't read the book at all.
I do expect to enjoy CC because, as good as CT was, I saw a lot of it coming. This is not entirely the game's fault of course. Me knowing about Lavos undoubtedly robbed CT of some of its nuance. But CC at least seems to be a more....I dunno what to call it. Well let's say this. CT was a very straightforward story 99% of the time. CC is not straightforward at all it seems. In fact it was suggested to me I need to do a double playthrough just like with my beloved Xenogears. A second playthrough will make everything more meaningful and understandable if it's truly like Xenogears in that way. Everything will take on a greater significance while I was just baffled the first time through.
Also in the meantime I'll be trying Radical Dreamers. Not technically canon or whatever but it was the inspiration for Chrono Cross and it's pretty short so why not?